A question often asked by clients whose main focus is TV is: “Should we test another medium? Everyone’s on TV, right? Shouldn’t we be testing something different?” Of the £5bn that was spent on TV in 2018, an extra £2.5bn was spent in addition to TV on other offline media, including press, out of home (OOH), door drops, cinema and radio. Of the 2,684 advertisers that were on TV in 2018, 25% of them were only on TV, leaving the remaining 75% testing at least one other media channel. The most popular media of those who test media in addition to TV is press, followed by radio.
Only 2% of total TV advertisers in 2018 only utilised offline media. These advertisers on average spent £27m across 2018, the largest budgets being on TV with an average of £13m. The biggest TV budget on TV being £58m from Sky, a total of £127m spent on TV overall for 2018. The advertisers that are spending this much, the typical big brands you’d expect to see, are the likes of Vodafone, John Lewis, Tesco and O2. Although 75% of brands are on other media in addition to TV; audience, context and cost per thousand (CPT) all need to be considered. (Source: Neilson Addynamix 2018 data).
All Response Media viewpoint
As an agency, it is imperative to be structured in a way that allows one to consider all media and what is the best mix for clients. At All Response, we evaluate the following:
Have we reached the tipping point of efficiency for TV?
With measurement and improving efficiency being at the heart of all our campaigns, we will be considering whether we have maximised TV efficiency, particularly with it being the highest reach medium. The TV watching environment is perfect for a response, plus on the spectrum of CPTs, is generally one of the lowest, allowing even waste to be efficient. We will also be considering testing new stations, time of day and programming that suit the brand’s audience and whether in some cases the target audience reach has plateaued. Diminishing returns on TV should also be considered, TV is an upper funnel channel that also plays a role of increasing reach, new audiences and prospects that other channels (such as digital) can harvest traffic and deliver lower funnel KPIs. Depending on the brand, there are second tier channels that can deliver that, such as OOH.
CPT and reach
If it is time to test a media outside of TV, how do we decide what to prioritise? We often utilise a ‘scorecard’ system, including the below. This allows us to ensure we look at a variety of media opportunities at a client by client basis, prioritising key KPIs:
Context and audience consideration
As part of the above, we will also be considering if the media fits the audience using other systems such as YouGov Profiles and Touchpoints. Is there a media that is heavily consumed, outside of TV, that will add additional unique reach?
Messaging
Messaging and context are also important and whether the brand fits the media. Is the product visual? Could it suit a regional message on radio, and could we use a text code to measure performance?
Measurement
As always, measurement is crucial, whether it be a drop down on a website, survey, brand measurement and/or user journeys. Depending on the KPIs, how we can measure and what measurement suits the brand is critical.
The media landscape is changing; however, TV still remains the biggest of offline media, and even the bigger players are prioritising and maximising TV before other offline media.
Video on demand (VOD) is not included in the above spends, however, it has been noted that 29% of video that is consumed is not TV, and we do need to consider whether there is a place for other reaching mediums to be efficient in addition to TV, but by no means a replacement.
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